How Walmart Is Trying To Woo Home Cooks With Shoppable Content

If you've cooked an elaborate dinner and bought ingredients for it in the past few months, then you probably know that it takes a considerable amount of planning and quite a lot of money. In September, Forbes reported that in August 2022 egg prices were 39.8% higher than in August 2021; bread prices were 16.2% higher. On top of these already-staggering increases, says the outlet, U.S. food prices are still actively rising. Still, most home cooks say they prefer eating in over going out. According to a recent Tasting Table exclusive survey, 48% of home cooks said they consider saving money to be the best part about cooking meals at home. Now, Walmart is stepping in to try and make the process easier for busy home cooks.

In September, Walmart announced that it would be going bagless in stores across the state of Colorado, via KRDO. The move came after transitioning away from bags in Vermont, New Jersey, and Maine. Now, the supermarket giant is back with another major development: shoppable content marketed to home cooks. Over the past year, says Grocery Dive, Walmart has partnered with cooking sites like Allrecipes, Today, Whisk, and Tasty to produce shoppable recipes intended to woo home cooks. Here's what it looks like.

Per Grocery Dive, the way it works is that shoppers hop on a participating website and pull up a recipe. In the ingredients section, there's an option to add each ingredient to an online shopping cart, which is set to your nearest Walmart location by zip code. Folks can pick up their groceries curbside or have them delivered. It's intended as a one-stop shop from recipe to table.

Compared to other platforms with shoppable content, Walmart is aiming to deliver personalization. Home cooks can swap out, omit, and filter their ingredients via specifications like "organic," "lowest price," and even "minimal waste." Per SideChef, there's also a tab for "ingredients you might have" at home that filters out staples like canola oil and table salt, which might already be living in your pantry. They even tell you how many leftover ingredients you're anticipated to have.

In January, Today said this partnership was targeted to home cooks looking to simplify meal planning and grocery shopping – which is also the goal of meal subscription services like Hello Fresh and Blue Apron, and online grocery shopping and delivery services like Instacart. SideChef announced its partnership with Walmart in December 2020, emphasizing "real-time prices and availability" for products. According to Jordan Berke, CEO, and founder of Tomorrow Retail Consulting and a former Walmart executive, shoppable content can drive online grocery sales by as much as 5% to 8%. That could be a win for the retail giant.